She noticed his kit before she noticed him. A firm leather saddle, smooth from riding. A promising start indeed. I’m a new country gal, and I love me a cowboy.

Charley Collins works an Idaho ranch with her brother, who has just broken his leg, so she needs a hired hand. She gets in her old truck and drives around looking for one.

She finds Shad.

No. No comment.

Shad Russell is a drifter. As the teaser promises, “Falling in love with a man like Shad would be asking for heartache.” He’s a loner, never settling in one place for long.

In the mean time, she hires him and he sleeps in the bedroom across the hall.

I’d never read a Janet Dailey book before. She wrote a romance for every state in the union. I’m embarrassed to admit that in 1981, I don’t know how many books that means, but somewhere close to 50. In the year The Travelling Kind was published, Harlequin saluted her as “the world’s No. 1 publisher of romance fiction!”

A little taste of the no-good-for-Charley drifter…

His mouth came down those last few inches to settle onto her lips with tantalizing ease. A sweet rush of forbidden joy ran through her veins as her hands slid around his neck and she melted into his arms. A steel band circled her waist to press her tighter to his length while his other hand tunneled under the thickness of her hair to cup the back of her head. The driving hunger of his kiss parted her lips, giving him access to the most intimate recesses of her mouth. She was caught in a whirl of sensation, all golden and consuming.

Although a stew of familiar now, this is a pretty great kiss for 1981. But with this book comes a few cock-blocks. Namely, the neighboring rancher, Chuck, who wants to marry her. Yeah, Chuck and Charley. Chuck is neither smart nor sexy. When Shad finally does leave, after Charley’s humiliating sobs (humiliating for Charley and the reader) and shouting at Shad that she won’t wait for him, she doesn’t. And she gets engaged to Chuck.

Until Shad returns two months later, the night of the engagement party. “I know I hurt you when I left but – Aren’t you glad to see me?” Banal cowboys must not be my thing. Because when he walks away, and Charley returns the ring to Chuck, I just want Shad to keep on drifting.

It’s difficult to describe the disappointment of effective sexual tension that does not end in consummation. Oh wait. I know how. Harlequin has blue-balled millions of readers (and heroes).

No penetration station for these Harlequin Romances. None of Kleypas’ inexorable slides. A euphemism would have been fine. But there is even none of that.

Many of the back cover plot summaries promise women marrying men they hate, don’t know, are scared of, or are otherwise duped by. Perhaps when I hit one with a post-marriage plot, I’ll get my consommé. In the mean time, I am stuck with hauntingly unfulfilled. I am haunted, because this is really quite a well-written book.

The heroine is not stupid. She’s accepted the position of chambermaid at a rich friend’s hotel in Cornwall, England, where from 7am to 1pm she cleans rooms, (including the hero’s), but after work, she’s like one of the family – feuds and all.

As is typical with this decade, multiple actors people the set. The hero has his pick of three other women, total. The heroine, two men.

The title – Rough Justice – describes the hero. Lots of bruised wrists and lips, and jaw muscle clenching, twitching, and jumping. My favorite type of hero, Mr. Angrypants, who gentles when the temperature is right.

He hauled her to her feet, and for a moment she thought he was going to hit her. His hand found her throat and he forced her chin up so that she met his eyes. She had never seen such naked anger, and when he spoke he seemed to have difficulty keeping himself under control. ‘You won’t marry Graham, Lorraine,’ he bit out. ‘I don’t care what I have to do to prevent it…The sooner you give in to me, the better it will be for both of us. The longer you resist me, the worse I’ll make it for you.

Ahh. Make it worse. Please.

Mr. Angrypants is a sub-type of Hero Archetype #1, Mr. Reserve. Mr. Reserve may be trying not to do any number of things while he tries not to kiss you. Mr. Angrypants is simply trying not to rape you. The final scene of Rough Justice illustrates this, where you would think perhaps now that they’ve agreed to marry, you might get some:

‘Do you surrender?,’ he asked, and she nodded, stilling underneath him, and breathing rather shallowly as she felt his full weight against her…After a while, Mark lifted his head and gazed down at her with a warmth that made her shiver…’Tempting as you are, my darling, I’m still angry enough to hurt you – and, he added softly, ‘you know I don’t want to do that.’

Do it. Do it do it do it do it.

His 70s fashion standouts – a navy blue velvet suit, which he wears whenever they play dress-up. The other men wear black velvet suits, so I am assuming navy is somehow innovatory (sic). Innovatory is a word actually used in this book. I feel silly that I haven’t been using it myself.

Her 70s fashion. Simply awesome. I wanted every outfit she wore. Lots of gauzy white cotton dresses and leather sandals. Tight Tshirts and blue jeans. A navy blue and white striped shirt that she finished off with a ‘jaunty’ red kerchief around her neck, because she wanted to look ‘young, fresh and vulnerable.’ This heroine makes fashion choices.

I loved this book! As pitched on the back cover…She’d always wanted to meet Mark Taylor.

The meetup: Superstar hero walks into local instrument shop to have his guitar peg fixed by small town heroine.

The conflict: He’s a superstar; she’s smalltown. She’s also a widow, which throws a wrench in the gears, but really it’s the bigtime vs smalltown.

80s fashion: This book was published in 1982, so really it’s still 70s fashion. He wears lots of leather pants. Doeskin for him anyone?

The Penetration Station: Get a load of this one!! I am including the text even after ellipses, as grammar manuals agree that an ellipses at the end of a sentence would include four dots, and RJ included only three….

And then the pinpointed, specific attentions of his fingertips ceased, and he placed his two broad hands on her bare hips, holding her up to him, and she waited in a rapt and aching anguish before she felt a low, warm sliding, and the waving tips of the clover and the brilliant blue sky seemed far away, and yet lent themselves to an unimaginable clarity as she dug her fingernails into the small of his back and moaned…His mouth simultaneously invaded hers, to no resistance, fierce, hungry kisses, random and love-violent, different from the gentle rhythmic movement of his hips as he lifted her, his hand under her shoulders, her blond hair spilling around them over the clover as he searched for, found, and held her most profound and silken depths, covering her face and mouth in fiercely loving kisses, murmuring love words (p. 113).

Ladies, we have a winner. The longest penetration sentence ever.

Survey Says: I read this book because of The Windflower. I’m moving through all of this couple’s books (Tom & Sharon Curtis). Where are they now? I prefer to leave it a mystery. In the mean time, I am enjoying their books. The Golden Touch was published immediately before Lightning that Lingers, which preceded in publication The Windflower.

As when reading Lisa Kleypas, the later books developed a level of expertise that only practice can make perfect. Earlier books can be lackluster, especially in comparison. This book is an example. The hero and heroine both lack a certain like-abilty, even credibility. But the story is still one I kept picking up, wanting to see how it ended. I gave it four stars because if you like Laura London, this is a why-not read. Doesn’t seem like they’ll be writing any more….

Meetup: Hero walks into a used bookstore the heroine had just inherited from her eccentric aunt, and with a ray of sunshine dancing off his blond hero hair, they fall immediately in lust, followed promptly by love.

Conflict: Hero is a painter, and painting has been his mistress. Though he’s ready to commit, heroine doubts his love will withstand his next gallery show. Also, there’s a detective story running through this one, with guns, federal agents, and references to Hart to Hart.

80s standouts: She’s a high school English teacher on summer break, who, had she not inherited the used book store (if not anachronistic enough), would have spent the summer delivering telephone books.

His fashion: One yellow knit shirt tucked into faded jeans. Not too terrible.

Her fashion: Turquoise dress. Appropriate only for mother of the bride dresses, or dresses for women who were in their 20s in the 80s.

The Penetration Station:

He kissed her once more, then lifted his head to watch her face as he entered her with a smooth power, filling her, bringing to her honeyed haven all that he was as a man

Yes, that’s right. Her honeyed haven.

Survey Says: Another one of Joan’s fun romps. References to Fletch throughout warmed my heart.